Beacon Unit Plan Library

Unit Plans - Learner Level 1: Visual Arts

Subject(s): Language Arts, Mathematics, Social Studies, Visual Arts (Kindergarten - Grade 2)Description: Slide, flip, and turn students' thinking into the world of spatial relationships and geometric design with directed inquiries in song, dance, literature, games, poetry, and history. Develop students' understanding of symmetry by investigating lines of symmetry to uncover congruent shapes, shapes within shapes, and reflections. Use of mirrors, geoboards, tangrams, and coordinate geometry help to build comprehension as students discover quilts and their geometric mathematics as an art form. Through history, students learn that quilts are rich in cultural heritage and epitomize conservation of resources, while meeting basic needs. Experiences are enriched by a visit with the local quilting guild, dyeing fabric swatches, and stitching an appliqué. Summatively assess student knowledge and applications as they perform slides, flips and turns with math manipulatives and unpack their mind to make a design to add to the classroom simulated quilt. Students write and publish a report on SiteMaker identifying the qualities of their selected quilt block pattern. As a grand finale, students read and follow informational text to fold a rectangle into a popper noisemaker.
Enjoy the rigors of high-energy teaching and learning without the toil of planning. This unit assures a well-balanced literacy program integrated with content learning in Math and Social Studies. Lessons smoothly segue one to the other, and are challenging, interactive, and address multiple intelligences. All handouts, assessments, and teacher organizational tools are included.

Subject(s): Language Arts, Mathematics, Music, Theater, Visual Arts (Kindergarten - Grade 2)Description: Turn a classroom nuisance into a delightful geometry unit assessment tool! With puppetry, poems, and geoboards, students move from understanding basic shapes to sorting, describing, identifying, and demonstrating attributes of two- and three-dimensional figures. The unit is designed to include multiple intelligence and differentiated learning style activities, including music and theatre. The neat little geometrically folded Chatter Box that kids so often make in class is used as an assessment instrument by becoming a puppet who will perform a short, jazzy, student-generated script explaining how it went from a flat two-dimensional figure to the stylish three-dimensional shape it is now. This integrated unit is presented in Reading Block Framework design. Integrated lessons for each day include Math, Working With Words, Writing, Shared Reading, and Literacy Link (the home connection), with suggestions for Guided Reading and Self-Selected Reading.